The Ames Room – Bird Dies The Ames Room (CF 231)Power trios come with various sounds and sizes. The Ames Room may be small but their sound is bold and forceful. This French/Australian trio lays into you like the first time you got beat up as a kid. It’s sheer brute force and once you finally give in there is this little blissful nature that sets in. The feeling that this might be all there is left for you. But The Ames Room help you realize there’s more inside the noise than you realize.

The Ames Room have only been on the scene for a short time (since 2007) but have crafted a sound that is blistering and beautiful. Fans of Vandermark, Gustafsson, Haker Flaten and Nilssen-Love are sure to gravitate to the trio’s new album, Bird Dies (Clean Feed). This one piece live recording follows up where their debut, IN (Monotype Records; 2010), left off–a full frontal attack of chords against the borders of a genre.

There’s no build up here. The Ames Room make their statement known from the first note. They come out of the gates ripping forward like Gustafsson’s The Thing in mid-performance. The staccato drums, breakneck sax and suffocating basslines that dominate the first 15 minutes of the piece are impressive for the duration as well as the stellar delivery.

The gears shift only slightly around the 23min mark. Guionnet’s takes the lead but is challenged perfectly by Guthrie’s cascading patterns. Meanwhile Thomas paints a small rhythm in the background. There are moments just after the half hour mark that remind of Ornette Coleman’s Change Of The Century. A calm descends on the closing ten minutes only to be resurrected to the opening salvo of white noise which cuts deep then comes full-stop.

The audience at this performance was probably left in awe. You can only briefly feel it from low volume mic on the audience. But make no mistake The Ames Trio is building a following and will leave an indelible mark on your senses. Bird Dies is challenging music but isn’t that what music is all about?http://jazzwrap.blogspot.com/

10. Greg Ward’s Phonic Juggernaut (Thirsty Ear)
Hard hitting trio for sax, bass and drums. This is tough, gritty and strong music that deserves an audience; it’s potent stuff.9. Rudresh Mahanthappa – Samdhi (ACT)
Samdhi looks forward to new vistas in Mathanhappa’s all-encompassing musical vision. Combining multi-cultural music and looking at jazz in a fresh direction, he has created a unique synergy of music that is fresh and exciting.8. Darius Jones & Matthew Shipp – Cosmic Lieder (AUM Fidelity)
This was a masterful performance from the two musicians – one an established master himself, and another on his way to becoming one. Jones and Shipp’s Cosmic Lieder is the aural equivalent to a dark and stormy night. Short, stark ideas collide like in a particle accelerator, and the brief nature of the performances just adds to their pointedness.7. David S. Ware – Planetary Unknown (AUM Fidelity)
You can chart Ware’s lineage in the depth and strength of the music, from a young devotee of Sonny Rollins and Albert Ayler, to a loft scene veteran developing his own unique sound to an esteemed elder statesman and master improviser and instrumentalist, Davis S. Ware is one of a kind and every note is a treasure.6. BB & C – The Veil (Cryptogramophone)
BB and C is a cooperative group consisting of alto saxophonist Tim Berne, drummer Jim Black and guitarist Nels Cline. This was a very exciting and continuously engaging album to listen to, moving between avant-garde squalls of noise and abstract passages of sound sculpture.5. Matt Lavelle – Goodbye New York, Hello World (Musicnow)
This album was very well planned out and executed, with both the duo and full band tracks succeeding well. Fans of progressive jazz are urged to check this out soon.4. Steve Reid, Kieran Hebden and Mats Gustafsson – Live at the South Bank (Smalltown Superjazz, 2011)
Shifting from dark and brooding textures to exciting, heavy and powerful features, the double album unfolds in a continuous suite waxing and waning like the unstoppable tide. This unique and fascinating performance is highly recommended for progressive jazz and rock fans.3. Matthew Shipp – Art of the Improviser (Thirsty Ear)
The power of the piece comes from the juxtaposition of heavy with light, much like the recent work of Ahmad Jamal. This was an excellent set that is highly recommended to anyone looking for the state of the art in jazz piano.2. World Saxophone Quartet – Yes We Can (Jazzwerkstatt)
The musicians play with great authority throughout this very exciting album, showing that regardless of the passing of time and the changing of lineups, the WSQ remains a powerful force in jazz.1. Mostly Other People Do the Killing – The Coimbra Concert (Clean Feed)What makes the band so much fun to follow is the impish delight they take in making music, from the delightful spoof covers to wryly quoting famous jazz songs amidst their original compositions. But make no mistake, their music is taken seriously and played with a very high degree of competence.http://jazzandblues.blogspot.com/

Tony Malaby – Novela – arr. by Kris Davis (CF 232)Looking both forward and backward, saxophonist and composer Tony Malaby revisits some of his earlier compositions in a new setting, a nonet arranged by up and coming pianist and arranger Kris Davis. The larger band allows for a much wider palette of colors, and Davis uses them very well from tuba and bass clarinet at the low end to soprano saxophone at the high end. This cornucopia of shading and texture brings a new level of detail to the compositions, and there is a palpable sense of discovery in the musicians playing. Besides Malaby and Davis, the band consists of Andrew Hadro on baritone saxophone, Ben Gerstein on trombone, Dan Peck on tuba, Joachim Badenhorst on bass clarinet, John Hollenbeck on drums, Michael Attias on alto saxophone and Ralph Alessi on trumpet. Highlights are the music are many but the leadoff track “Floating Head” (one of my favorites from the Tamarindo LP) begins with ominous low-sounding horns. Developing into a theme filled with musical color, strong full band make way for a ripe saxophone solo accompanied by bright sounding piano. Soprano saxophone, and a strong rhythm section juxtapose low tones against strong trumpet. “Floral and Herbaceous” has a slower and question feel, looking for musical answers amongst the silence. Building a raw, guttural saxophone feature and playing if off against percussion and other horns gives the music great texture and context. A slower movement builds to an intense section that leads to an unsettling conclusion. Saxophone and percussion flutter at the beginning of “Warblepeck” contrasted by a cartoon-ish percussion or electronics (hard to tell which.) The horns and reeds develop a near march like feel that is worldly, colorful and a lot of fun. Slow and spacious, “Mother’s Love” is the ballad of the set with horns and saxes set afloat in spacetime. Haunted, rolling bass clarinet and bells keep the music subtle. This was a very interesting work, allowing the listener to not only hear the talents of this excellent group of musicians, but learn about Malaby as a composer and especially Davis as an arranger of considerable talent. Hopefully someday soon she will get a grant to allow her to develop a big band project all her own.http://jazzandblues.blogspot.com/

Bobby Bradford Mark Dresser Glenn Ferris – Live in LA (CF 241)LA trumpeter/cornetist Bobby Bradford is a living legend of free jazz music. He grew up in Fort Worth, Texas and played with childhood friend Ornette Coleman, eventually replacing Don Cherry in Coleman’s quartet years later, after a stint in the Air Force, and the move to California. He enjoyed a long and fruitful association with reed master John Carter, another Texas transplant, that lasted until Carter’s death.

Glenn Ferris began playing trombone as a professional in the ahead-of-its-time Don Ellis Orchestra in 1968, when he was just 18. In 1972, he went out on the road with Frank Zappa, and ultimately landed in France, where he continues to teach and play presently. Mark Dresser first played with Bradford in the early ’70s, in a group with David Murray on saxophone and James Newton on flute, helmed by future music critic/drummer Stanley Crouch. He moved to Italy via a Fulbright Fellowship to study with Franco Petracchi, then to New York for 18 years playing with Anthony Braxton and other leaders of the free jazz continuum, before returning to San Diego to teach at UCSD. Live In LA represents a sublime collaborative effort between three master musicians at the top of their game. All of these guys share a very strong rhythmic component–allowing them to breathe together as a unit despite the absence of drums. Indeed, Dresser performs a sort of double duty–keeping time not only through the surety of his bass line flow, but also with well-timed percussive effects that drive the pulse forward. Dresser’s “For Bradford,” opens the disc, and the polyphony of the two horns over the shifting metrics of the bass is well established when Ferris muscles to the front with bluesy repetitions and swinging lines, soon joined by the fat, smearing remarks of Bradford. They solo together, then suddenly Dresser surfaces with his trademarked double-glissandi and chromatic strumming. “In My Dream,” an original by the trombonist, begins with a fanfare like melody, and when Dresser breaks into straight “time” playing, the results are ecstatic, opening up a bed of support for Ferris’ ebullient, swinging solo. On “Pandas Run” and “Bamboo Shoots,” the three players create remarkably cogent, on-the-spot group improvisations that bear the same weight as the more composed material. Bradford lays out long lines of chromatic sequences, then rests, as Ferris takes over with burring, slurring commentary. Dresser’s bass is always muscular and adroit, and his hands are so powerful, he occasionally makes his strings sound like rubber-bands about to snap. “Bbjc,” by the bassist, opens with Bradford and Ferris engaged in echoing lines while Dresser alternates between furious walking, shifting pedal tones and brief moments of violent string slapping. Bradford and Ferris solo in tandem– the trumpeter’s insistent trills often drawing short bursts of multiphonics from the trombone in reply. Bradford even whips out the plunger-mute for some gutbucket discourse–a true aural delight.http://www.sandiegoreader.com/weblogs/jam-session/2011/dec/21/bobby-bradford-mark-dresser-glenn-ferris-live-in-l/